Andrea Badham
36
Pottsville, Australia
Ascending and Arch Thoracic Aortic Dissection
Hi Brian,
My journey starts in Oct 2008 when my husband, Pete and I finally had our first positive pregnancy test after 9 attempts at IVF. It was not a great pregnancy, everything that could go wrong did but we got our little angel Evie 4 weeks early, delivered by C-Section due to Pre-Eclampsia and “stroke like episode”. This was probably the forewarning that something was really wrong but not picked up.
After spending 2 weeks with Evie in the Special care nursery at the John Flynn Private Hospital on the Gold Coast, Australia we were ready to get home and enjoy Evie.
Saturday, July 4th, 2009, we had been home for 2 nights and Pete asked if I wanted to go for our first walk with Evie. We live on a steep hill but I felt fine. Little did I know this walk was going to change our lives forever. We got to the bottom of the hill and felt my carotid pulse racing. Being and Emergency nurse myself I thought it was SVT (fast heart rate) and rubbed my neck to try and slow it down. I also noticed that I had no pulses in my wrists and I was seeing starts.
Pete told me to lie down and I started to feel better. I don’t remember any of this, it’s a blur but Pete has filled in the gaps. We continued up the hill, getting more short of breath and dizzy. I made to our granny flat downstairs and got back the pulses in my wrists and managed to get upstairs. Pete put me to bed and then all I recall is like a black curtain going across my vision and I was still able to tell him to call an ambulance as something was really wrong. We live about 30 mins away from the local Tweed Hospital where I work but the ambulance had just been down our way so they were there in about 10 mins.
On my way to hospital I apparently became extremely confused and my blood pressures were unequal. When I arrived at the ED I was still really confused and they were having trouble getting IV lines in me. I had forgotten had Evie 2 weeks ago and was very repetitive. Only after I was there for a while did I start complaining of chest pain and that’s when one of the docs thought TAD so I went to the CT scan and they found the dissection.
The Tweed Hospital doesn’t have Cardiothoracic but the private hospital does, so we were lucky we had Top Cover and the ED doctor was able to contact the CT surgeon who was on-call for the Private Hospital and came in to do the surgery. So the ED doctor (our head consultant) escorted me to JFH Private for surgery. Here was my husband sitting there with a premmie new born being told if I don’t have surgery tonight I will die and if I do there is a 30% chance of dying as well.
The next thing I know is waking up in the ICU with tubes everywhere and intubated. I never thought this would happen to me as I was once and ICU nurse as well. I even asked the nurse if I was on Pressure Support (a setting on the ventilator) prior to been weaned off it. She said it was the first time a patient had asked her that!!! I was transferred the next day to the Cardiothoracic Surgical ward and continued to improve each day and discharged home after 5 days.
We all thought that would be the end of hospitals for some time but I continued to have the “eye turns” so I was in and out of hospital a few times until they discovered both my carotid arteries had dissected as well. The left may have dissected in week 17 of my pregnancy when I had ringing in my ears but nothing was ever discovered. I was still on lots of hormones for the pregnancy as it was IVF.
I continued to have these turns for weeks afterwards and was diagnosed with ‘migraine auras’ without headaches. Apparently these are symptoms of carotid dissections. I wasn’t able to pick up Evie for about 3 months and my amazing hubby had to babies to look after.
Over the next few months they slowed disappeared and now 11 months after the event, I haven’t had any for approx 2 months. Fingers crossed everything is healing. My last CT scan still shows a persistent tear in the Arch and r) carotid artery. I am still on warfarin, betablocker, antihypertensive and aspirin. My BP stays around 110/70 – 120/80. I have recently started back at work 3 days a week doing Nursing Admin as my career means a lot to me.
I am just so happy to be able to celebrate my bubs 1st birthday soon and hope there are plenty more to come. My husband, family and friends have been amazing through this ordeal and our lives changed in seconds, maybe for the better.
It has been great reading all the posts form other sufferers as I can’t find many websites like this in Australia. I would so love to talk to another sufferer in Australia who has been through this at my age.
Thanks for stopping by to view our stories. Please help me keep the site going by shopping at Amazon.com-It’s very much appreciated. Brian Tinsley founder of AorticDissection.com (please book mark the link once you get to Amazon.com for future purchases!)
Thanks
Andrea Badham
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You all are so blessed. In 2009, three women that I know, all between the ages of 37-39 died of aorta dissection. All three women were overweight but no known health issues. One left 13 year old twin boys behind, one had a 12 year old daughter. The commonality between these three ladies, all three were on the birth control patch Ortho Erva. Neither of these women smoked or were heavy drinkers.